I was just thinking what player strategies other players actually use in Might & Magic series ( I'll refer to it as the MM series to cover 6,7,8, &9).

Not webpages with full solutions, or shortcuts to someone selling the strat guides on ebay ( got all of that stuff already).

No, I mean the hints, trick , tips, exploits YOU have personally discovered and utilised in game.

I'll start the ball rolling. EXPLOITS.

Hill climbing.
Most angled hills can be climbed in the MM series if you jump at the base of your target hill then keep jump held down and press forwards, your team slowly climbds most hills.

Auto shooting & casting.
Go into turn based mode, and wedge the A or S keys down to send a constant hail of death at your enemies Use a biro pentop to push between the keys then twist, or a coin wedged between the keys to hold them down.

Fly and shoot.
Learn fly as fast as possible, then you can use the up and down keys when in turn based combat and shoot those arrows.

SO, they are some of the exploits I use in game, what have you got?
Gameplay Strategy ?
Quick experience gains ?

While completing the archmage promotion quest in MM7 (find the book of Divine Intervention in The Pit), after you get the book, go to the Seer. Drop the book on the ground and talk to him. Pick "we lost it" and he will give you a new book. Repeat ad nauseum for a pile of gold. What a pity that there is no such exploit for the dark side.

A couple of things I do-
1. If I know I'm going to use a different weapon or Armor, I don't bleed points into them. For instance I use a knight and he starts with Leather, but I know that He will master Plate later on, just Ignore putting skill points in leather, He can take it at the beggining of the game anyway.

2. Later in the game if I'm strapped for cash, I buy Normal objects, Enchant them, then sell them back for a mark up. (Assumming you have mastered Merchant)

3. My companions (The two people you can ask to join you, think they are called NPC's) are always both teachers, meaning they give a boost to EXP, very helpfull in progressing in the game.

4. Finally, I never buy Weapons or Armor (Save for Bows at the begining), I tend to come by better weapons throughout the game.

There are a number of area-effect spells such as Sparks and Shrapmetal which are designed to damage a number of monsters in an arc around the party by releasing a number of missiles at different angles. I find such spells are pretty hit-and-miss as you can't reliably control the trajectory of each missile. However, they are very useful spells against a single strong enemy: Walk riiiiiight up to the baddie so his blurred pixellated body fills the screen, then let fly with Sparks or Shrapmetal for a massive hit point burn.

Also, never sell unenchanted gear. Cast Enchant Item or Fire Aura on any vanilla weapons and armour that you pick up before you sell it.

Shop around for the best prices, especially for training. In MM7 I think you get extremely good prices at Stone City once you've done them a couple of favours.

Many players recommend giving everyone points in Merchant in order to make training cheaper. I think that if you do these other tricks to get more gold then you won't need to waste your precious skill points - by the middle of the game you should be pretty comfortably off. Make one character your grandmaster Merchant, and just buy Merchant 1 for everyone else.

By strafing around the dragon in the cave on Emerald Island in real time, you should be able to shoot him to death without much trouble. This should give you a big early boost in wealth.

Lead dragonflies back to town on Emerald Island and they will kill the townspeople without getting any blood on your hands. You can then pick treasure off their corpses, including a handy wand of fireballs.

You can do a similar trick to the dragon fly one mentioned above in Stone City in MM7.
Under the city is a large cave network full of troglodytes.

1) Use both elevators to get you into the cave network.

2) Agro some mobs and get them to run at you, get back to the elevator and go back up 1 level.

3) Get out the elevator, and press the button to send it back down. All the mobs will now climb on board the elevator to try and get to you.

4)Drop down the elevator shaft, and as you drop hit turn based mode. When you land, hit the elevator up button. The elevator travels up with you AND all the mobs.

5) Repeat at next elevator, and you will have successfully transported all the mobs into Stone city. Kite them into the city street and watch as they kill the townsfolk and guards, leaving you to pick up all the loot. When in combat make sure you don't hit a Stone City resident or you go on the enemies list for 30 days.

To clear the entire cave network took me about 5 saves and 30-40 minutes of game play.
Considering you get to Stone City as early as level 6, this is a nice way to make a few gold.


This will mean a small amount of combat for you, or if you want to reset them, just run out the city and rest.

MM7 again:
in Walls of the Mist (that dungeon in Celeste), enter the middle portal. collect all stats increasing barrels, go out and repeat ad infinum.

And a few strats I use myself but that have already been written by other forum posters, so I thought I'd compile them here:-

Once you have both the fly and starburst spells, you can also corral ground-based melee monsters by flying around in a circle above them, then casting starburst (the movement patterns of things like archers don't really support this strategy). Depending on the area, you can end up with a lot of dead bodies after only a few instances of starburst .




Don't try and kill all the monsters at once. Most times you'll find that you can approach that huge hoard of monsters slowly, and let a few of them peel off and run at you. Once you've dealt with them, get a little closer and let the next few run at you. If you accidentally activate more monsters than you can deal with, run away (zigzagging to avoid their range attacks) until some of the monsters give up the chase.

Try somewhere else.
If the encounters are too tough for you where you are, perhaps you don't belong there yet? Through most of the game you have plenty of options of places to explore.

Don't fireball at close quarters. But you knew that, right?

Get a bow for each of your party members and level to the best skill level that they can use.

Get Ring of Fire and use it up against doors, etc.
Double doors and side-opening doors have a visible gap that you can safely kill enemies through.

If your enemies are on an incline , hill or slope and you go into turn based mode you will notice they start sliding back DOWN the hill or slope. Wait until they drop to the bottom and open up with the bows again. When they get close, stop shooting and they slide back down. Rinse and repeat

(Not my tip) Spoiler of all mm7 in one page: http://www.the-spoiler.com/RPG/New.World.Computing/might.and.magic7.2/MM7.HTM

There's tons of smart strategies and exploits in mm7, here's a few I use.

- You can get infinate top loot including lots of relics by using a save/load exploit. After killing a dragon (if you have the patience you can use this at emerald island, if not the cavalier quest is a good time to do this) save before you loot. If the body disappears after clicking on it, load the save. Once in a while the body won't go away after looting the body. Save when this happends, and continue the process.

- The invisible spell lets you complete a lot of quests without ever fighting. Some quests are near impossible without it.

- Perception. While merchent skill is certainly a great way to combat poverty, high perception skill lets you find treasures all over the world.

- Using the envirement to your advantage can let you hit monsters without them ever hitting back. A good example of this is the house filled with champions and masters of the sword north in Tatalia. By standing in the staircase, looking down while the enemies are on the side of the stairs, you can hit them but they can't hit you (if you do it correctly).

- In dungeons constantly click on walls. Might and magic 7 is filled with hidden treasure.

Because guards often kill monsters for you when you lead them into town, you can risk losing a chance at experience points. If you talk to the guards, however, it will distract them while the monsters attack (both you and the guards, unfortunately, but it can't be helped). Time it right and do it often enough, they will never strike a single blow against your enemies, so you can loot their bodies without becoming their enemies.

Those dragonflies respawn almost immediately. When I'm level 1 I can lead them all to guards, or to the adventurers on the hill, who can kill them for me, and make valuable corpses of themselves in the process! Then I can take all the loot from the now dragonflyless building in the swamp, and level up. By the time I'm done training, the dragonflies are back and I can kill them myself to my heart's content.

There goes the lamest exploit(more of a cheat I think) I found in MM7
(not recommended until you're bored and finished the game at least once)

Once you can access to the Land of Giants(place filled with Dragons, Titans and Kreegans), seek the Armsmaster GM teacher.
His house is just north from the Tunnel that connects between Mt. Nighon and the Land.
There's a well that... makes your wishes on use, which is randomly picked from these.
- 10k gold
- 5k EXP
- Petrify
- Death
- Eradication
- +50 AC(temp)
- +50 Fire resist(temp)
- +50 Air resist(temp)
- +10 Skill Point
- Remove magical aging

Before doing things with the well, I recommend heading NW to reach the altar. It's a teleporter to Harmondale(Dragons and Titans guard the altar).

approach the well. save the game(in case you fail hilario... er, miserably).
hold down Right Mouse button on one of your character's face. that'll get you a mini stat window.
Then hold down Space Bar (it's usable to activate and loot stuffs).

The character selected will be petrified, dead and reduced into dust, but keep holding both RMB and Space Bar down..
That way you won't change character selection(it does if RMB mini window's closed) even if they're eradicated, but he/she somehow keeps getting EXP, Gold and most importantly, skill points.

When you're done with it(release space bar first, then RMB), try it on other members. but never let EVERYONE die.
Use either the Altar or Town Portal / Lloyd's Beacon spell to get healed in the temple.

I think that's the only way to cap your skills in ease(thousands of skill points in minutes).
Training won't easily hit such massive amount of SP.

I warn ye, It may destroy your fun building up your party.

Excellent points : does anyone have a list of all trainers costs?? Going to Stone City all the time is painful, but training cost rapidly get out of hand above level 30 or so.

Another trick - in Erithia is a Pedestal for "Day of the Gods", which raise ALL your stats a bunch, incl LUCK - which I think (?) will affect your Enchant results for selling weapons/armor, as well as results for converting ore to weapon/armor/item

Has anyone compiled a merchant table ? Prices vary quite a bit, with Stone City a clear winner now (I'm level 20 now). But again, Stone City is too time consuming to get to routinely to sell weapons, etc